But according to Sticky, a firm that uses eye-tracking technology to figure out exactly which ads people look at, the actual number of ads people see is closer to 14%. According to company president Jeff Bander, people’s brains are trained not to look at certain places on a page, meaning many ads publishers serve are merely white noise.

1. Images on the left, text on the right

When a brand displays a logo, it's important for the image to be on the left, with text residing on the right.

Here's why: the right side of our brains are used to process images and the brain processes visual information inversely. In order for the brain to process an image on the right side of a logo, it would first have to flip the image over again before doing so. This saves your brain work, and makes it less likely that its 100 billion neurons will shift focus to something else.

3. Less is more

'With ad-blocking technology advancing, publishers need to balance between ad revenue and content more than ever,' Bander said. 'Smart publishers will limit the number of ads and ultimately increase revenue because consumers will put up with ads if they are not the dominant real estate on the site.'

5. The Rule of 1.5

Sticky's research has found that an ad that is viewed for 1.5 seconds or more is much likelier to make the consumer remember the brand and focus on its message.

Bander said ads that are viewed for under one second pose a major challenge to advertisers and those that are viewed for two seconds or more are what he calls 'the sweet spot.'